


Sunset

by RoyaltyOverReality



Category: Gone Series - Michael Grant
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Suicide Attempt (Heavily Implied), This the closest you're going to get to fluff with these two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21723382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoyaltyOverReality/pseuds/RoyaltyOverReality
Summary: I originally wrote this story as a prompt for my creative writing club, all the way back in 2014. We had to write a short story that began with the sentence "I found her on the rooftop with a smile playing on his/her face." That sentence made me visualize the scene that I described in the first paragraph, and I just let the story progress from there. To this day, it remains one of my favorite things that I have ever written for the Gone fandom.
Relationships: Diana Ladris/Caine Soren
Kudos: 5





	Sunset

I found her on the rooftop with a smile playing on her face. She was wearing a T-shirt that had once been light purple, but time had turned it gray. She had paired the shirt with a pair of crusty black fleece pajama pants that had faded red polka dots on them. She was barefoot, and I could see her toes curled over the edge of the roof. Her arms were outstretched like the wings of a bird taking off. Her eyes were closed and her head was tilted back. For the first time in months, she looked content, as though she was enjoying a non-existent breeze.  
She couldn't jump. She wasn't allowed to. Not while I was here.  
"DIANA, GET DOWN FROM THERE!" I ordered. Then, not as loudly, but equally as forcefully, I repeated myself.  
"Calm down, drama queen. I was just enjoying the view," she said.  
"Your eyes were closed," I said.  
"Really? I didn't notice," she joked.  
I chuckled softly and used my telekinesis to gently pull her back from the edge of the roof. It was just a few inches, nothing she would notice. Well, at least nothing I thought she would notice.  
"Cut it out, I'm not going to fall," Diana groaned.  
"How did you even pick up on that?" I asked.  
"I have no idea! It's not like having an invisible hand grab you by the ankle and drag your bare feet across shingles hurts or anything!"  
"Well, it probably hurts less than falling to your death."  
"For the thousandth time, I wasn't going to fall. Why are you being so obnoxious about this?"  
"Technically, this is only the second time that you've said that."  
"You dodged my question."  
"Well, I'm not going to answer it because I'm not being obnoxious."  
"You keep telling yourself that, Caine."  
My heart skipped a beat when she started to move forwards as if she was going to step over the edge, but she was just sitting down. I stood in silent consideration for a few seconds before sitting down on her left. Diana didn't respond, she just stared at me blankly before eventually rolling her eyes. We sat in silence for what seemed like forever, almost enjoying each other's company. Even starving and miserable, she looked gorgeous in the scarlet glow of the sunset.  
"Be honest with me, were you going to jump?" I asked.  
"A giant sigh came barreling out of Diana's lungs with the slow force of skyscraper falling to the ground.  
"I wasn't, Caine," she replied, "At least, I don't think I was. Originally, I had just come up here to clear my head. I needed to get away from you and your little minions, especially Penny. There's something not right with that girl."  
"Of course not, she's a Coates kid."  
"Yeah, but she's worse than most of them."  
"How so?"  
"I don't know, I can just tell that there's something about her. She looks at me like she'd pay a million dollars to put little scorpions in my ears."  
"What did you just say?"  
I couldn't help but laugh.  
"What's so funny?" Diana wondered.  
"That whole scorpion thing was so weirdly specific. How do you come up with something like that?" I asked.  
"Look at Penny's face next time I'm talking to her and you'll see."  
We sat in silence for a few more seconds, watching as the illusion of the sun slid down into the ocean. My vision kept shifting from the sky to Diana and then back to the sky again. I really wanted to put my arm around her, but I wasn't sure if now was the right time. It almost seemed like the right time, but I wasn't going to risk making a fool out of myself if putting my arm around her would only make her feel worse than she already did. To me, it seemed like this depressing moment was slowly turning into a romantic one. However, it sometimes seemed like Diana and I had very different definitions of the word "romantic."  
After a few minutes of consideration, I decided to go for it. If two high school sweethearts sneaking up to the rooftop so they could watch the sunset together wasn't romantic, then nothing was. Right? If we were able to forget that we were both slowly starving to death for just a couple of minutes, we might have been able to have a nice moment for the first time in who knows how long. I couldn't just sling my arm around her, though. I had to decide how I would execute it. It couldn't be too slow or too quick. I had to make it one flowing movement. Did this kind of thing have to be subtle? Subtle romantic gestures were never my strong suit.  
Suddenly, I realized that I had begun to chew on my thumb. I quickly pulled it out of my mouth and checked to make sure that Diana hadn't noticed how nervous I was feeling. Then, I discreetly snaked my other arm over her shoulder. She turned her head to look at me. I couldn't exactly read the expression on her face, but I could tell that she wasn't happy. In the best-case scenario, she was suspicious of my intentions. In the worst, she completely disapproved. Surprisingly enough, she didn't tell me to move my arm. She just looked ahead and leaned in closer to me. We sat in silence for a little while longer before she spoke.  
"Why do all of your best friends seem to be psychopaths that have it out for me?" she asked.  
"You're talking about Penny and Drake, aren't you?" I replied.  
"No, I'm talking about SpongeBob and Patrick. Of course, I'm talking about Penny and Drake!"  
Well, then you'll be happy to know that I have never considered either of them friends, much less my best friends. If you really want to go into it, Drake was probably the closest thing I've ever had, but that doesn't make him a friend. He was just my right-hand man. Penny is even less than that. She's just a replacement Drake."  
"Because the first Drake worked out so well."  
"You're right. He didn't."  
"I'm what!?" Diana asked.  
Her reaction was almost funny. Her eyes were wide, her mouth was hanging open, and her eyebrows were raised to heights that I didn't know they were capable of reaching.  
"You're right," I repeated.  
"Who are you and what have you done with my boyfriend!?" Diana joked.  
"I don't tell you that very much, do I?"  
"I'm pretty sure that this is the first time."  
"Well, you are. Drake wasn't as great as I thought he was. He was too hard to control. Luckily, I won't have to be dealing with that anymore. Penny is a different kind of person. She wasn't a bully, like Drake. She was shy. She's used to having more outgoing people telling her what to do. She won't be disobeying my orders any time soon."  
Diana laughed quietly. It was such a soft, undetectable chuckle that most people would've mistaken it for the sound of her breathing out. I knew her too well to think that, though. I could tell that she was laughing from the way that she smirked.  
"What's so funny?" I wondered.  
"You're still the exact same guy you were on the very first day of the FAYZ. After all those crimes, everything that happened with that thing in the mine, and…you-know-what you still manage to be the Fearless Leader who promised us all fake salvation at one point or another."  
"The island's not fake, Diana."  
" _Bug_ found it in a magazine. That makes it pretty fake."  
"Hey, Bug reads a lot of magazines. I wouldn't doubt it if he found something useful in least one."  
"I wouldn't doubt it either, if he read the kind of magazines that have useful information in them, but he doesn't."  
"Well, I think they have interviews and stuff in those kinds of magazines."  
"How would you know?"  
"I wouldn't, I'm just taking an educated guess."  
"And where did you get that education? Playboy University?"  
"No!"  
"Calm down, I'm just messing with you."  
"You're always just messing with me."  
"Yeah, but you wish I was messing with you in another way, don't you?"  
"No offense, but right now there's more important stuff on my mind."  
"Like what?"  
"Food."  
"No offense taken. I feel the same way."  
"Thanks a lot, now you have me thinking about food."  
"How is this my fault? You were the one who brought up food. I just brought up sex, and if that directly makes you think of food, then you have a serious problem."  
As the top of the sun began slipping out of sight, the world darkened and our moment fizzled away. It was as if Diana and I were starring in our own TV show and the universe had just faded us to black. I stood up and offered her my hand. She had accepted it, despite the fact that she probably didn't need me to lead her off of the roof.


End file.
